The Vestini

The Vestini were located in the central Abruzzo, along the long hydrographical basin known as Aternus/Pescara valley system, running from the inner Apennine mountains to the coast. The river Saline was the northern boundary along the coast, while the southern boundary was the Aternum river, creating a very narrow outlet to the sea, but quite crucial from an economic point of view. The literary tradition mentions for this population a ver sacrum under the auspices of the goddess Vesta or the Umbrian god Vestikos, as protector and eponymous god (Buonocore and Firpo 1998, 823-840, with discussion of the literary sources and the previous bibliography; see also Di Fazio, Religion Chapter for more on the ver sacrum). The name Vestini/Oestinoi is attested only by later literary sources. For earlier periods, the homogeneity of the archaeological finds since the ninth to eighth centuries BC suggests that the local tribes were part of a wider Safini/Sabellian context, as for the rest of the mid-Adriatic area. The intent of this chapters is to illustrate the new excavations and studies of this wide context, which has been fundamental for the formation of the ancient central Apennine peoples.